WARNING: This report mentions and contains imagery depicting, referencing, or related to eating disorders, sex, and disturbing content that some people may find upsetting.
About Accountable Tech
Accountable Tech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advocates for structural reforms to repair our information ecosystem and foster a healthier and more equitable democracy. From the movement to ban surveillance advertising to the fight for online platforms to be better designed, Accountable Tech is leading the movement for a more human-centered digital world through legislation, regulation, and direct advocacy. To learn more, visit AccountableTech.org.
Executive Summary
| Meta began automatically placing teens aged 16 and under in the U.S. into Instagram Teen Accounts on September 17, 2024. These accounts are meant to provide default protections that would limit direct messaging with adult accounts, enable private profiles, establish time limit reminders, and enforce content restrictions designed to shield teens from sensitive content. Accountable Tech worked with five members of the youth coalition, Design It For Us, to trial and test how these default protections worked over a two-week period between March 10 and May 4.
Using 5 new test Teen Accounts, we found that Instagram Teen Accounts do not always live up to Meta’s promise to protect teens online:
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For a detailed analysis of our methods and findings, we encourage you to download and read the full report.
